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a BOOK of HOURS : Music, Literature and Life
a Memoir

Published by the Continuum International Publishing Group – 2004
In 1972, Father Lee (a Basilian) was appointed to the position of Associate Professor of Classics at the (Jesuit) LOYOLA UNIVERSITY in CHICAGO, IL.
In 1974-75, for his final year with them, he taught in ROME, Italy at their JOHN FELICE ROME CENTER, (Casa Italiana Viaggi Internazionali Studenti). This Jesuit campus was constructed on the premises originally built for the Olympic Village of the 1960 Rome Summer Olympics. (In 1978, the Rome campus of Loyola University moved to its present location on the Via Massimi, on the peak of the Monte Mario, in NW Rome.)
He tells how, on weekdays, he would teach largely American students about the greatest of Greek and Latin poets and their works. (This memoir provides acute insights into how any student should analyse, interpret and respond to lyric poetry.)
He also tells how, in the evenings, he would visit the great basilicas and monuments of Rome. (This memoir has perceptive and evocative descriptions of these sites.)
On weekends, with a EURAIL pass, he would visit opera houses, great and small, throughout Italy – and also travelling north of the Alps, in Germany, France and Austria. (He explains his reactions to the multiple dozens of opera productions he experienced.)
Finally, this memoir also movingly chronicles his personal struggles, at the age of 44, with his vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. He accepts that, although he is a Father of the Church, he will never have children of his own, – a conclusion not achieved without considerable pain.